By 2030, 30% of insurance workers reach retirement age and, including the emergence of agency systems, the insurance industry’s workforce is expected to undergo a major transformation. AI offers huge opportunities, but recruiting and highly skilled talent remains a huge challenge. Insurance companies that can attract, improve their skills and rekill employees are proficient in AI to gain substantial benefits and efficiency.
Accenture’s research highlights the importance of a human-led AI approach, highlighting the $17.9 trillion difference in economic growth over the next 15 years. At the FS Industry AI Seminar in London in November, most of the insurers attended were committed to this approach, viewing it as a key strategy to expand value.
The insurance industry is particularly well positioned and can benefit from AI, where most of its working hours are in financial services, including insurance, involving tasks that are rich in languages or with a lot of data. Likewise, given that unstructured data represents an estimated 80-90% of all new enterprise data, generative AI with human-like capabilities and proficiency has seen widespread adoption without a doubt.
Unlocking this potential in the insurance industry requires close collaboration with professionals with the most in-depth knowledge of their work. Currently, 36% of insurance CXOs worry that a lack of worker skills will hinder their organizations from making the most of their ability to generate AI.
Preparing for employees in the era of generative AI has never been more critical. In this blog, we will explore three strategies to adopt a human-dedicated reshaping method.
1. Solve workers’ concerns through transparent communication
Although artificial intelligence can handle many tasks, its functional level continues to improve; human skills such as judgment, creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence are still irreplaceable. Our research shows that 55% of insurers are concerned about the stress and burnout associated with working with AI, while 50% are concerned about work displacement. These problems are effective but can be overcome and must be addressed to ensure a transition and maintain an aggressive workforce. By highlighting how AI can enhance human capabilities, organizations can build trust and confidence among employees while transforming roles into a skill-based approach to the insurance industry.
We found that only 5% of the tasks performed by insurance sales agents are estimated to be fully automated, 47% of the tasks will remain the same, and the rest will be enhanced, which will significantly improve employee experience and productivity. For example, at present, there are insufficient underwriters in the labor market, and 40% of the time a typical underwriter is consumed by non-core activities and administrative tasks. If leveraged correctly, the generated AI and autonomous agents can greatly increase their work by automating data analytics and providing insights, which will allow underwriters to focus on more strategic and value-added activities. Similarly, customer service reps can use AI-powered chatbots to handle regular queries, freeing them to solve more complex problems and establish stronger relationships with customers. By highlighting these complementary roles, companies can help employees view AI as a tool to enhance their work, thereby improving work-life balance and job satisfaction rather than threatening to their jobs.
2. Speed reshape and foster a culture of continuous learning
In order to thrive in the age of generative AI, insurers must invest in strong repeat programs. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated, as 24% of insurance leaders believe that the lack of access to the right skills is a major obstacle to growing the business and serving customers. This statistics highlights the key needs of action and highlights the potential benefits of a well-prepared workforce.
It is crucial to help workers understand the changing roles. Insurance companies should provide learning pathways related to future work environments. The appetite among employees is there. Although 92% of workers want to generate AI skills, only 4% of insurers reattack at the scale they need. Therefore, insurance companies should implement a multi-faceted comprehensive, continuous retransportation program and provide online and in-person training opportunities. These programs can include workshops, webinars and hands-on training courses to ensure employees are equipped with the necessary skills to work with AI. Insurers, for example, are excellent at handling structured data, but by ensuring employees are equipped with generated AI skills and tools, they will be able to process large amounts of unstructured data and documents at a higher speed.
Partnerships with external providers can also play a key role in these renewed efforts. By working with educational institutions, tech companies and industry experts, insurers have access to the latest training resources and best practices. These partnerships can help create a culture of constant learning by providing employees with a wider range of learning opportunities and ensuring training is up-to-date and relevant.
In order to maintain a love of learning, insurance companies should provide sponsorship and clear recognition to their re-planned colleagues. Using elements like points, badges, and rankings to ridicule learning experiences can inspire employees and help track their progress. Platforms like Viva can participate in building collaborative learning environments where employees can share knowledge, ask questions and support each other.
With Learnvantage, we speak at Accenture
A year ago, we launched Learnvantage, a flexible ecosystem designed to support learning and future skills. These include the Academy of AI, which offers educational courses and deeper learning opportunities such as the Nanomechanics Pathway, a certified online education program that teaches you professional skills in less time than a bachelor’s and master’s degree, and external accreditation from institutions such as Stanford University. For example, we trained S&P Global’s entire executive team, leaders and staff through a comprehensive AI academy.
Learnvantage aims to support the ongoing learning and skills development of human employees and AI agents. It emphasizes learning in work and personalized processes, covering a wide range of topics in advanced fields ranging from basic AI fluency to person-in-charge AI. By capturing meaningful data, LearnVantage can help refine and improve learning experiences, build trust and ensure that both humans and AI agents have the ability to handle their tasks effectively. This approach promotes a culture of curiosity and innovation that aligns with broader AI and digital transformation initiatives.
3. How to attract and retain insurance talent: now and in the future
For insurance companies, it is crucial to compete for new talents in engineering, security, data and artificial intelligence across the industry. People aged 18-24 in the United States are the least likely to choose the insurance industry to work in employment*, while insurance companies have more talents than they hire. By 2030, a shortage of 10.7 million workers for financial and commercial services is expected to be short of, attracting and retaining talent has never been more critical.
One important way to solve this problem is to restructure the employee value proposition (EVP). It should emphasize the positive impact of engaging in insurance, highlighting how it protects society, businesses and individuals to attract purpose-driven younger generations. EVP should also reflect the importance of innovation and skill development, especially in emerging technologies such as AI. Including your Executive Vice President in your marketing strategy can help build awareness about insurance outside of the traditional talent pool.
Once your EVP is restructured, it is important to develop a strong recruiting strategy. Recruiting by business area and creating personalized messaging for professional candidates for relevant geography. Integrate and test global and local EVP elements into HR processes and employer brands.
To refresh the recruitment strategy, work with universities for targeted early career recruitment, security, data and AI. Utilize alumni and staff for advocacy and recommendations and interact with early career talents, including apprentices and graduates.
Ensuring a seamless candidate experience is crucial. With generated AI, personalize and accelerate the hiring process, it makes it easier to post a job and enhance the candidate experience through AI and agency architecture, making recruiting more attractive and efficient.
Finally, look for hidden workers, such as caregivers, veterans, and others with rich skills. These people are often overlooked or may not consider themselves suitable for the insurance industry.
Not only a technological change, but also a cultural change
To embed AI fully into the workforce and ensure acceptance of tools and practices, insurers need to understand future role needs, hone their skills gap identification and development processes, and leverage data tools such as Skills.ai to identify external and internal skill mastery needs. Additionally, regular competitor analysis should be performed using AI to further refine these recruitment strategies to ensure that everything provided, including the compensation structure, is market-related. By facilitating this cultural transformation, we can work together to build an agile workforce ready to meet the growing needs and needs of the insurance industry today and tomorrow.
*Source: External data from ecosystem partners from federal and state sources in the United States.
